The Body, Feelings, and the Unheard Music of the Senses

1 Translated by Karen Christenfeld.

Abstract

The author explores the role of the body and bodily experience in emerging from mental paralysis and a sense of annihilation. Evidence of the body and the working through of bodily sensations can offer the analysand proof of his or her subjective dimension. Two clinical cases are presented: a case of infertility that developed in an unforeseen way and a case of so-called erotic transference in which bodily manifestations of erotic feelings opened the way to the analysand's discovery of her own body and her personal world of affects. In both patients, the raw and unmodulated feelings emerging from the body revealed an “internal musical dimension” waiting to be recognized. The multidimensional flow that characterizes the internal dialogue between body and mind contributes in a crucial way to the development of the ability to experience feelings and to think in the presence of emotion.

Keywords:

• body
• body-mind dissociation
• bodily countertransference
• feeling
• erotic transference
• primitive mental states
• sense organs

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Riccardo Lombardi

Riccardo Lombardi, M.D., psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, is a member of the International Psychoanalytic Association, and a Training and Supervising Analyst of the Italian Psychoanalytic Society. He is in private practice in Rome, Italy.